


And Then There Were None

by sunset_oasis



Series: Sins, Not Tragedies [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Based on Agatha Christie's famous novel And Then There Were None, EWE, F/M, Motives are a bit twisted, Murder on an island, Murders are a bit dark but nothing too graphic, Mystery & Suspense, Spoilers of the original novel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 16:05:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9131632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunset_oasis/pseuds/sunset_oasis
Summary: Draco, Blaise, Pansy, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Hannah, Ernie, Luna, Michael. 10 Hogwarts students received vacation invitations to an exotic, faraway island. One by one, they fell prey to murder. Apparently the killer was amongst them and not afraid to strike again. Only the dead were above suspicion …  Loosely based on Agatha Christie's novel of the same title. Warning: Spoilers of original novel.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Harry Potter.  
> This is originally posted on my FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11936329/1/

**_Now_ **

He put an arm around her as they sat together on the quiet beach alone, gazing into the ocean and the setting sun.  The scenery was a beautiful, even after all these years.

She kicked the sand stood up, taking a few steps forward into the cool ocean waves flapping onto the sand. “Still the best scenery I’ve ever seen,” she commented.

“Me too,” he yawned as he stood up too and walked over to join her, satisfaction lit up in his handsome face as his feet touched the ocean waters. “And I’ve been to a lot of places.”

“Show-off,” she playfully admonished him and punched him in the arm. “Well, you didn’t complete brilliant murder schemes at the other places either, so I guess that makes a difference.”

“True,” he laughed, and she found his laughter to be still the best thing she’d ever heard of in her life. “Ah, the fond memories of our lovely island.  I’ve missed here.”

 

* * *

 

**_Then_ **

Draco and Blaise

It was the summer after the eighth year of Hogwarts for Draco.  Potter had cleared his name – and his family’s – for him and he was grateful of that.  It turned out the Golden Boy had much more influence than he previously thought, because the public was far less agonizing than he previously thought.

Eighth year was quite peaceful compared to his seventh year in turmoil.  He graduated with excellent NEWT scores and he already got the acceptance from the Law Department.  Everything looked great.

He guessed he could use a vacation before entering the Law Department and started the daily nine-to-five life during summer.

Blaise took a sip of pumpkin juice as he reread his invitation again and raised an eyebrow at Draco, “The Sunday Isle?”

“Never heard of that one,” Draco admitted, “but then, those who own an island can name their island whatever they like.  I do wonder what person nicknamed himself a Blue Snail though, I mean, snails seem slow and incompetent.”

Blaise shrugged, “I dunno.  Maybe it symbolize the slow life of some rich person living on a self-owned Carribean Island.  You going to accept the invitation?”

“Yeah,” Draco nodded, “free vacation at some faraway island, exactly what I need now.  And this Blue Snail person said that only 10 selected Hogwarts students are invited.” He grinned.  They both knew how Draco enjoyed to be one of the few selected.

 

Pansy and Hermione

After the war, inter-house unity was the hottest thing.  The ex-Gryffindor girl prefect and the ex-Slytherin girl prefect, Pansy and Hermione, didn’t really expect themselves to get along with the other, but they got on surprisingly well.  When they got together, they topics ranged from homework to fashion to Hermione’s ex-boyfriend who was also Pansy’s current boyfriend, Ron.

Today, though, their topic was the vacation invitation to a private island it seemed that only a selected few got.

“You’ll be going?” Pansy asked as she and Hermione dined at a restaurant at Diagon Alley where they met every Thursday for dinner.

“I’m not sure,” Hermione hesitated.  A vacation did seem good for her, particularly before she started her job at the Ministry.  She had heard the Law Department could be pretty busy.  She supposed she should go, but …

“Just ask him if he’s got the invitation too,” Pansy suggested.

“If he would, I wouldn’t want to abandon him …”

“Oh, come on, I thought you’re the independent type!  Surely you can go on one vacation without him.  And don’t worry, he might be invited, too.”

“Yeah, yeah, maybe, but the invitation did say only 10 students would be invited …”

“Have a little faith in your boyfriend, will you?  I’m the one who needs to be worried about my boyfriend not getting an invitation.” Pansy rolled her eyes. 

Hermione giggled, “However Ronald may be, he’s still a war hero, Pans.”

 

Ron and Ginny

The two youngest Weasleys were thrilled about the free vacation invitation.  Apparently, being war heroes came with a lot of benefits and recognition.  They rarely got a chance to visit other countries before, except for the time they visited their brother in Egypt.

“We’re definitely going, right?” Ron asked Ginny excitedly. 

“Sure we are,” she grinned back.

Neither of them worried about their respective boyfriend/girlfriend of getting the invitation.  They had been rich for all their lives and the youngest Weasleys were sure they wouldn’t mind not being invited to some small island when they had probably travelled to many different places anyway.

 

Hannah and Luna

Hannah had become closer with Luna after being partners at the seventh-and-eighth-year-mixed-Herbology class.  When they ran into each other at Hogsmeade the other day during summer, they were quite glad that both of them got the invitation to the island.

“I wonder if there are Nargles there,” Luna said dreamily.

Hannah nodded absently.  She wondered more about if there were hot boys invited.

 

Michael and Ernie

The ex-Ravenclaw boy and ex-Hufflepuff boy were both surprised and pleased to be the selected few who got an invitation to the free vacation at Sunday Isle.  They didn’t think they stood out as someone special, though they were both in the D.A. there were also a handful of others that contributed more to the war.

But, an invitation was an invitation and free vacations were awesome, and they both decided not to turn it down.  Michael since he was thrilled to find his girlfriend also invited, and Ernie in hope of meeting some summer romance.

 

* * *

 

**_Now_ **

“Although everything about our island is beautiful, I’ve always loved the sunset best,” she said fondly.

“I remember it’s also a late afternoon when we all arrived at this beach that day …” he closed his eyes, remembering the day when the 10 Hogwarts students got portkeyed to the particular beach.

 

* * *

 

**_Then_ **

Ron’s eyes flicked open as he felt he landed on soft beach sand.  He examined the others around him, apparently just arrived at the beach from where they had previously been.  It was late afternoon and the sun was hovering just above the skyline.

“Still lacking the sense of balance as ever,” he heard an aristocratic drawl and whirled around to see Draco Malfoy.  Ron’s face became redder than usual.

“Stop teasing him, Draco dear,” Ginny rolled her eyes as she walked over and put her hand across his arms.

“Is Potter late as usual, or am I wrong in assuming the Golden Boy would surely be invited?” Another voice interrupted them and they all turned to see Blaise in a fitting summer-style polo shirt.

Everyone looked around but none of them saw Harry.

“Knowing Harry, he did have a habit of being late,” Hermione said, sounding a bit of uncertain.

“Celebrities all do,” Draco muttered.

“So did anyone actually confirmed with him that he received the invitation?” Michael asked.

“Um …”

“Well …”

“He’s the savior of the wizarding world …”

“How could _Harry Potter_ not get it?”

But as everyone looked at each other, they realized none of them had actually asked Harry if he got an invitation.  Hermione did a quick count and realized that there were already 10 people here. “I guess … unless someone here got their invitation transferred from Harry …” she began.

“Then Potter isn’t invited,” Draco said gleefully, finally feeling he could best Potter at something.

“Or he’s our host,” Luna pointed out.


	2. First Death

**_Now_ **

They played with the ocean waters for a bit, enjoying the coolness and clearness of the water.

“I love the ocean here,” she took a deep breath in content, “so clear and untainted.  No pollution whatsoever.”

“Perhaps,” he said thoughtfully, “it’s tainted by murder.”

“Perhaps,” she agreed. Then she asked, “Feeling guilty?”

“Never,” he shrugged lightly. “I probably had guilt surgically removed from myself a long time ago.”

“Really?  What else have you probably removed?” She asked in amusement.  “Empathy?”

“Not removed.  Just reserved for a selected few.  Such as you.” He leant in and kissed her.

 

* * *

 

 ** _Then_**  

The 10 just-graduated-students went into the big, three-floored cottage not far from the sandy beach.  Once they got inside, some of them gasped at the magnificent living room in front of them.

“So … so grand,” Ginny’s eyes widened, not having been to any place like this.

“Our host surely is wealthy,” Hannah said.

Draco turned towards Ginny, “just wait until you visit my place, it’s even grander than this.  You’ll like it.” He promised her.

She smiled at him and hugged him while Ron mumbled something like ‘pompous prat’ under his breath, which Draco ignored.

A house-elf appeared and bowed deeply at them, “Welcome to the Sunday Isle, Sirs and Misses.  Vitty would be your house-elf throughout the time you spent here.  Should Sirs and Misses need anything, just tells Vitty and Vitty will tends to yours needs.  Master Snail has some works to attend so Master won’t joins Sirs and Misses here, but Master tells Vitty to make sure Sirs and Misses enjoy their stay here.”

Some of the students were slightly disappointed that they wouldn’t get to meet their host, the Mysterious Blue Snail person, but shrugged it off.  The island looks like a great place and they can enjoy a good vacation here.  Plus, the cottage seemed quite comfortable, if not luxurious.

“Dinner will be ready at six,” Vitty smiled happily, “Sirs and Misses can pick their rooms before dinner starts.  There is many rooms in the cottage and Sirs and Misses can pick any room they likes.  The rooms is all in second floor and third floor has a quidditch field.”

“Great!  A Quidditch field!” Ginny’s eyes shone in excitement.  Beside her, Ron looked quite eager to have some fun in the Quidditch field too.

“I didn’t bring my broomstick,” Blaise frowned and turned to Vitty. “Do your master have some broomsticks here?”

“Master has many broomsticks!” The elf said, more than willing to help. “The broomsticks is all at the pitch, Sirs and Misses is free to use it.”

“A Quidditch pitch in a cottage, for Merlin’s sake,” Hermione muttered. “Seems like our host is another big Quidditch fan.” _Just like so many people in her life._ “Who has an indoor Quidditch pitch in a cottage?”

“We’ve got one in the Malfoy Manor,” Draco drawled, an arrogant smirk climbing up his face. “The Malfoy Manor has got pretty much anything.”

“Draco,” Ginny hissed. “Stop it.  I’m sure Hermione doesn’t like talking about the Malfoy Manor.”

“As far as I recalled, there were dungeons too, useful for keeping prisoners,” Luna said, her voice plain as if she was talking about the weather, but Draco regretted instantly about bringing up the subject.  He should’ve remembered some people here had less than fond memories of his home.  He really shouldn’t forget all that, especially when he had his share of less than fond memories himself when Voldemort lived there.

Draco groaned inwardly and was about to apologize when Blaise spoke in attempt to change the subject, “I think we should all go pick our rooms, dinner is serving soon as Vitty said.”

Draco turned to Ginny to suggest they find their rooms but Ginny was on her way to Hermione, seeming worried about her.  He cringed, he was sure he would pay for that one when Ginny and he got alone.

“Your witch’s furious,” Blaise murmured in a low voice to Draco, “do be more tactful, mate.”

“I just … how am I supposed to know,” he hissed back furiously. “One minute we’re talking about Quidditch and she asked and I just—”

“I know,” Blaise cut through him. “So, just be more tactful, yeah?”

Draco glared at Blaise but didn’t continue to argue, and Blaise turned and led Luna away.

“Let’s go find out if there’s rooms for 2 people, shall we?” Luna asked him.

Meanwhile, Michael, Hermione’s current boyfriend, didn’t know anything about what happened to her during the war when she was at Malfoy Manor, as Hermione didn’t really felt like talking about it.  He looked at the two Gryffindor girls worriedly.

“Hermione, are you alright?” His voice was quite concerned.

“I’m fine,” Hermione nodded, “Thanks, Ginny, but I’m really fine.  Don’t blame Malfoy … he didn’t bring this up on purpose.”

“Intentional or not, I won’t let my boyfriend hurt my best friend.”

Ron and Pansy were the first to make it to the second floor and they found out that the odd-numbered rooms are single rooms while the even-numbered rooms for two people.  Though the bed in the single rooms were still quite large and not hard to fit in two people.  In the end, they decided to pick a double room together so they could sleep together on a bigger bed.

The two Hufflepuffs were the only ones that were single on this vacation, so Ernie and Hannah both found single rooms for themselves. However, they had been long time friends and knew each other a lot better than they knew the others, so they chose for their rooms to be quite near each other’s.

Hermione and Michael, despite currently dating, hadn’t been together for that long and decided to take two different single rooms.  They felt that they could still visit each other’s room anyway.

Blaise and Luna also picked a double room for themselves and so did Draco and Ginny.  After settling down their luggage, all of them went for the dining room.

 

* * *

 

**_And Way Before Then_ **

“I like the plot outline.  And I like using the nursery rhyme as a theme.” she said finally, looking at his neat script on the parchment. “Let’s start planning the details then.”

“If we arranged them to arrive at dusk, the first can be done at dinner.” He said thoughtfully. “What’s the line in again?  Ten little Indians went out to dine.”

“One choked his little self and then there were nine,” she continued for him, nodding. “So, poison.”

“Easy.  I’ll take care of this one.”

 

* * *

 

**_Then_ **

Everyone took a seat in the beautiful dining room.  Vitty had already prepared multiple cuisines on the dining table for them.  The food was really good, probably rivalling the Hogwarts feasts.  Everyone dug in and chatted amongst themselves.  Although they came from all four different houses, inter-house unity was the most promoted thing after war so they all got along fairly well – at least, better than they would have gotten before the war.

Suddenly, a Patronus appeared in the form a blue snail beside the window, and everyone turned to look at it.  The voice that spoke was smooth and unrecognizable.  It began reciting a poem in a smooth yet chilling tone,

“ _Ten little wizards went out to dine; One choked his little self and then_ _there were nine._

 _Nine little wizards sat up very late; One overslept himself and then_ _there were eight._

 _Eight little wizards travelling in Devon; One said he'd stay there and_ _then there were seven._

 _Seven little wizards chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in halves_ _and then there were six._

 _Six little wizards playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then_ _there were five._

 _Five little wizards going in for law; One got in Chancery and then there_ _were four._

 _Four little wizards going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and_ _then there were three._

 _Three little wizards walking in the Zoo; A big bear hugged one and then_ _there were two._

 _Two little wizards sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then_ _there was one._

 _One little wizard left all alone; He went and hanged himself and then_ _there were none._ ”

There was a stunned silence when the snail patronus finished, then suddenly everyone began to talk in some sort of franticness.

“What’s that about?” Hannah sounded scared. “Sounds like a … a threat.”

“Must be some prank,” Ernie said, trying to comfort her.

“Yeah, seems our host here have a wicked sense of humor,” Ginny flung her hair and tried to stay casual. “Must only be some stupid prank, I’m starting to wonder if my brothers are behind this.”

“Who even made this kind of sick poem?” Pansy demanded.  Ron put his arm around her shoulders, attempting to sooth her.

“Ginny’s right, probably just our brothers, Fred and George might do this kind of things.” He said placating her.

“I’ve heard of this poem before …” Hermione frowned, as if trying to remember something from many years ago.

“Where have you heard of it?” Michael asked her.

“Well, it’s a muggle nursery rhyme,” Hermione explained.

“What’s a nursery rhyme?” Draco asked, genuinely puzzled.

“How could it be something muggle?” Blaise raised an eyebrow. “Did you hear the poem said ‘wizard’ in it?”

“I think, it wasn’t the original rhyme,” Hermione said slowly. “It’s different from what I remembered … some words were modified.  I think the original text was ‘Indians’ rather than ‘wizards’.”

“Why Indians?” Luna asked, sounding interested.

“I don’t know,” Hermione shrugged, “I’ve never really bother studying nursery rhyme, to be honest.”

“I don’t think your brothers would be behind this, you know,” Draco told Ginny. “No offense, but, your family isn’t that rich to own an island.” He sounded slightly apologetic.

“None taken,” Ginny said lightly. “I guess there’s some point there.  Maybe its Harry, he did inherited both the Potter and Black vaults.  And Harry sometimes got a strange sense of humor, too.”

“Yeah, Potter indeed does,” Draco agreed.  Blaise sometimes wondered whether Draco and Ginny had bonded over their past mutual obsession for Harry Potter.  He once asked and Draco had punched his arm in in vehement denial, so he never asked again and just came to his own conclusion.

Pansy was calmer after Ron’s comforting, but suddenly she began coughing vehemently.  Ron clapped her on her back and tried to ease her, and felt temporarily relieved when the coughing stopped.

Only temporarily because he realized Pansy’s head drop lifelessly onto the table and pulse weakened.  His face paled instantly and began shaking her, “Pansy, Pansy, can you hear me?  Please, please be fine, Pansy, please.”

“Anyone got a bezoar?” Draco snapped and looked at his friend from childhood with equal worry.  Everyone looked at each other and shook their heads.  Draco groaned.

“If only Snape’s here,” Blaise muttered.

“Pansy!” Ron wailed. “Somebody do something!”

Hannah whispered, “One choked his little self and then there were nine.  Oh gods, it’s the poem!”  She fainted.  Ernie and Michael bent down to try to support her back into her chair.

“Vitty,” Luna said in a commanding tone, and the elf appeared. “Find a bezoar.”

Vitty frowned and tried hard to think, “Master doesn’t has bezoar.  Vitty is sorry.” Then the elf noticed Pansy and its eyes widened as it rushed towards her. “Oh, is Miss alright? Miss?”

Hermione checked for Pansy’s pulse and shook her head sadly, and Ron broke down into sobs.

“Nobody touches the food,” Draco said sharply. “Vitty, did you poison the food?”

“No, Vitty would do no such thing!” The elf cried, sounding shocked. “Vitty would never poison anyone.  Vitty made these food herself and no poison is added!  Please believe Vitty.”

“Vitty, it’s alright, no one’s accusing you,” Hermione said shakingly, while both Draco and Ron growled ‘I am’ in the background. “We’re just scared.  But it’s not your fault.” She tried to tell the elf kindly.

“How’s Hannah?” Luna turned to her friend.

“Still alive, I think she just fainted,” Ernie checked and answered.

“Perhaps Pansy’s just allergic to something?” Ginny asked.  Like Hermione, she was also shaking. “Not really poison?”

Draco shook his head slowly, “I don’t think she’s allergic to anything, at least I don’t know about it … and I’ve practically grown up with her.  Blaise?”

Blaise shook his head too. “None that I know of either.  Since the rest of us is fine … someone must’ve slipped something into _her_ food.”

Everyone looked at each other warily, except for Ron who looked angry. “Who’d do that to Pansy!”

“Technically, you sit closest to her,” Draco snapped. “Easiest to slip in something.”

“Fuck you, Malfoy!” Ron was outrageous.

“Stop it you two!” Ginny shrieked. “You guys fighting is _not_ helping.”

“Maybe … someone else is here with us?  Disillusioned himself maybe?” Michael suggested.

“Or herself,” Blaise added.

“Or the invisibility cloak,” Hermione whispered.  Ron stilled.

“It’s a rare stuff,” Draco said dismissively. “Disillusion charm is more likely.”

“Harry has one,” Ginny said quietly. “But I don’t believe he would do something like that.  Not Harry.”

“Or it could be one of us,” Luna said, “A perfect disillusion charm isn’t that easy to manage.”

People looked uncomfortable at the suggestion, and glanced at each other.

“This sounds like something a Slytherin would do,” Ernie muttered.

Both Draco’s and Blaise’s eyes flashed dangerously.

“Slytherins,” Blaise said slowly, his voice low, “are loyal to each other.  And Pansy’s one of us.  It’s usually the rest of the houses that has a problem with us.”

“We would never do this to Pansy,” Draco’s voice was equally low, “we protect our own.”

“What if it wasn’t meant for her?  What if someone else was the target, and she got poisoned by mistake?” Michael asked.

“According to that nursery rhyme,” Hermione said slowly, “we might all get to be targets.”


	3. First Night

**_Then_ **

Despite their mutual dislike for each other, Draco agreed to let Ginny stayed at Ron’s room tonight after seeing how distraught he was after Pansy’s death.  He wasn’t worried about Ron being the person who killed Pansy and that Ginny might be unsafe with Ron, mainly because he didn’t believe the Gryffindor could pull such a convincing show of tears on after his girlfriend’s death.

Luna, on the other hand, offered to stay with Hannah for the night since she worried her Hufflepuff friend would be too afraid to sleep.  However, Blaise voiced his concern about this when she suggested this at the dinner table.

“I don’t want you to leave my sight all night after … what just happened,” he protested. “I can’t protect you if you’re at another room.”

“Pansy was at the same room with all of us, yet none of us managed to protect her,” Luna replied.  Ron let out another sob at the mention.

“That’s beside the point,” he snapped. “I want you to stay with me.”

“And what about Hannah?” Luna raised her eyebrow. “She’s alone in her room.  Do you not care about that?”

Blaise scowled without replying, as Hermione thought in slight disdain that Slytherins seemed to be only concerned for themselves and their loved ones, but rather uncaring when it came to other people from other houses.

“I can take care of myself, just like I try to have faith in you taking care of yourself when I let you stayed alone in our room,” Luna pressed on. “I’m risking as much as you here.”

Hermione was rather impressed with the fact that despite Luna’s boyfriend’s urge to protect her, she wasn’t the kind of fragile flower that expected boys to protect girls.

“If I could interrupt,” Draco cut in, “I think no girl should stay alone in a room tonight.  So if Abbot would be uncomfortable with another boy with her in her room, than a girl should stay with her.”

“Would you be so quick to agree if it’s your girlfriend staying with a distraught Hufflepuff who obviously couldn’t protect herself?” Blaise hissed to Draco in a low voice that only the two of them could hear. “Someone that probably needs protecting, not her big brother who would put her safety first.”

Draco didn’t answer, but Blaise knew what he was thinking.  No, despite that he didn’t think highly of Ron Weasley, Draco would still believe Ron would be better at protecting Ginny compared to Hannah Abbott.  Gryffindor boys may not be overly smart in his opinions, but he believed them to have more fighting experiences than a Hufflepuff girl.  Draco wouldn’t let Ginny stay with a girl who he thought to be incapable of protecting her either.

“Hermione, I think you should stay with me, too,” Michael said.  Despite that they hadn’t really gotten to that stage, he believed Draco to have a point and his girlfriend’s safety was higher priority than the fact that they hadn’t been together long and not that intimate.

Hermione was about to say that she was the witch who helped Harry Potter defeated Voldemort and was perfectly capable of taking herself, when Draco snapped as he saw her opening her mouth to protest. “Before you explode with comments about sexism, let me rephrase – _no one_ stay in their room alone tonight, not just girls.  Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” she snapped back coldly.

Blaise, who apparently believed in Hermione’s ability, suggested, “how about you stay with Luna and Abbot, and Corner with Macmillan, Drake with me, and the Weasleys with each other.  I assume you could enlarge the bed to fit you three?”

Hermione considered and then nodded, satisfied with the solution. “Yeah, I can.”

 

* * *

 

**_And Way Before Then_ **

“People’s emotions would be running high after the first death,” she said. “I’m willing to bet that someone would come up with the suggestion of not leaving anyone alone in their own room.”

“That would be a little inconvenient for us,” he mused.

“No,” she countered. “It would actually be perfect for us.” 

As she sketched out the outline of the second murder, his marveled her brilliancy.

“But what if no one came up with the suggestion for nobody to sleep alone?” He asked.

“I’m sure that someone would, and we can give a few push here and there, but if nobody does, just bring the idea up yourself,” she shrugged.

 

* * *

 

**_Then_ **

Draco and Blaise chatted into the late night about who the possible killer might be.  They both thought Ron Weasley wasn’t a good enough actor to pull this, but the rest of Gryffindors might be smart enough, especially Granger.  Draco was pretty confident about trusting Ginny, though Blaise wasn’t willing to be so sure. 

They both agreed that it was unlikely to be the Hufflepuffs, though they also admitted that this fact might actually give the Hufflepuffs some advantage because everyone thought they were honest.

And while Blaise expressed complete faith in Luna, Draco was unable to let go of his suspicions of the eccentric Ravenclaw.  And both of them also believed Michael Corner to be someone smart enough to pull this whole thing off, despite they couldn’t figure out a motive yet.

In another room, Ginny was busily comforting her brother who just lost his girlfriend.  She wasn’t that familiar with Pansy herself, but she understood that the girl had become quite important to her brother during the year after the war.

Unlike Pansy’s Slytherin friends, they didn’t discuss who they suspected.  Instead, Ginny tried to cheer Ron up with conversations on harmless topics, from the products of Weasley Wizarding Wheezes to Quidditch.  After a while, deciding that they had a tired day already, the siblings decided to call it a night and went to sleep.

 

* * *

 

**_Now_ **

“I must confess that I had doubts about picking Pansy as the first target when we first started,” she laughed lightly. “But my suspicions vanished after it did create your desired effect.”

“Of course,” he smirked, “I’m a genius.”

 

* * *

 

**_Then_ **

In the all-girls room, the three girl from different houses huddled together on the bed that Hermione had enchanted to grow larger.  After Hannah went to sleep early and Luna started reading her book about Nargles under the dim light, Hermione sat on the sofa and brood.  After a while, she suddenly stood up and decided to put up some wards around their room so the others couldn’t get in after they slept.

Ernie and Michael also discussed who might possibly be behind this, and both of them were suspicious of the Slytherins even when both Blaise and Draco had stated indignantly at dinner that they would never harm fellow Slytherins.

But, as Michael pointed out, “they would still say that even if they killed her, wouldn’t they?”

 

* * *

 

**_A_ ** **_nd Way Before Then_ **

“By the way, we have to discuss whether we go as a couple go as two single people,” he said.

“There’s actually a third option,” she pointed out.

“That we go as different couples?” He raised an eyebrow and she nodded. “Yeah, I’ve thought about that, but it would mean I have to endure some other girl that’s _not_ you.” He pretended to pout.

“Stop acting like you’re not a good enough actor to do this,” she admonished playfully. “We could each have alibis for different murders by being around our boyfriend/girlfriend at that time while another do it.  And if we belonged to different couples, people are less likely to think that we’re working together.”

“But it would also limited our time with each other, if an accident came up we might not have a chance to discuss it discreetly without looking suspicious.” He pointed out.

“We’ll decide about it later.  Now, let’s planned the second death … _One overslept himself and then there were eight._ ”


	4. In the Morning, More Deaths

**_Then_ **

The all-girls-room, having gone to sleep the earliest last night, also woke up the earliest in the morning.    After changing their clothes, they headed out to the dining room.  Vitty the house-elf rushed over to them eagerly as they showed up and asked them what kind of breakfast they would like.

After telling Vitty what breakfast they wanted, Luna asked if it was possible to have their breakfast at the living room since sitting where Pansy died just yesterday might make everyone a little uncomfortable.  Vitty nodded her head a few times and assured them she would bring their breakfast out to the tables in the living room for them.

The Weasleys walked in not long after and Hermione was glad to see Ron doing slightly better than last night.  They continued to eat and wait for the others to wake up.

It took another thirty minutes for the two Slytherin boys to join them, yawning as they also sat down on the couch in the living room while Vitty asked what would they like for breakfast.

“Wow, has everyone else finished?” Blaise raised an eyebrow. “You guys sure got up early.”

Ginny rolled her eyes, “Its 10 so it’s not that early.  But no, you weren’t the last.  Ernie and Michael hasn’t shown up.”

“Good to know we aren’t the laziest,” Draco smirked as he sat beside Ginny and gave her a quick kiss. “Morning love.”

“I’ll go wake them,” Hermione decided as she had already finished her breakfast.  Plus she wondered why Michael slept in, as she knew he wasn’t usually this late-rising.

 

* * *

 

**_And Way Before Then_ **

“Oversleeping?  I supposed the easiest way for this one is still poisons.  Administer some during one’s sleep,” she mused.

“Definitely, but what if someone told Vitty to prepare some bezoar after the first night?” He asked.

“Actually, I planned to do that myself,” she laughed at his expression.

“Okay, explain that one, witch,” he demanded.

After she did, he looked impressed, and she felt slightly smug as he usually wasn’t very easy to impress.

“You, my lovely girl, is totally brilliant,” he breathed and leant in to kiss her on the cheek. “And wicked.” He added as an afterthought.

“Guess I’ll take that as a compliment,” she grinned.

“You mean about wicked?  Of course it’s a compliment!” He said in mock indignation and she laughed again.

 

* * *

 

**_Then_ **

The people in the living room turned their head around when they heard footsteps running down the stairs urgently and Hermione’s panicky “Oh god, they – they’re”

“They’re what, Granger?” Draco asked sharply.

“Dead – or, almost, I should say,” she choked out. “Poisoned too, I think, there were some liquid stain at both of their mouths.”

Hannah looked about ready to faint again, Luna’s eyes flowed with worry as Blaise took her hand and squeezed it to comfort her, Ginny gaped at Hermione, Ron looked dumbfounded, and Draco cursed under his breath.

“Vitty has bezoars!  Vitty prepared it after last night.” The house-elf surprised the people when she said it.

Ginny was the fastest to recover, “then let’s go and save them!”  The elf nodded fervently and disapparated to their room.

Ginny grabbed Hermione by arm and the two of them dashed out of the living room too, anxious to check on the two boys.  Ron and Draco recovered as soon as they saw Ginny leaving and followed quickly.

Luna looked at Hannah with concern and asked Blaise, “let’s stay here with her, I don’t think she could handle the scene there, and I’m sure there are enough people there for someone to know how to use a bezoar.”

“Okay,” Blaise agreed. “At least I know Draco could, and Granger probably knows how to, too.”

“Thanks,” Hannah gave them a small smile.

 

Meanwhile at Ernie and Michael’s room

Ron and Draco caught up with Hermione and Ginny quickly and they entered the room together.   Vitty had just shoved bezoars down the poisoned boys’ throats.  Hermione bent down beside Michael.  Draco and Ginny checked on both of the boys while Ron gaped at the scene, being reminded of Pansy’s death just last night and looking ill.

They soon found out that Ernie was already dead, having consumed too much poison before the bezoar was fed to him.  Luckily, Michael’s dose was somehow smaller, and the bezoar managed to take effect after some time.  He remained unconscious but his pulses were starting to grow stronger again.  Hermione let out a sigh of relief at this, then immediately looked guilty about her relief because Ernie wasn’t saved.

Vitty disapparated with Ernie’s corpse to bury it outside with Pansy’s.  Draco remembered he had a product he had bought at Diagon Alley long ago that could help revive someone unconscious, and offered to go back to his bedroom to fetch it.  Ginny took a look at her ill-looking brother and decided to walk him back to his room to take a rest.  Hermione stayed with her unconscious boyfriend, waiting for Draco and his product.

 

Meanwhile back in the living room

Hannah was continually looking pale, so Luna insisted the Hufflepuff girl should go back to the bedroom and lie down for a while, for she really wasn’t looking good.  Hannah agreed to this, and let the Ravenclaw girl walked her back to their room while Blaise continued on his unfinished breakfast.  He took a look at Draco’s breakfast, which was also unfinished, and did a quick warmness-maintaining charm on it so it wouldn’t get cold when Draco finally came back to the living room.

 

* * *

 

**_Now_ **

“I still remembered how nervous you were about the third death,” she chuckled.

“Hey,” he protested and sent her a mock glare. “It’s natural to be nervous, since it’s the biggest step that could go wrong.”

“Well, so you weren’t confident enough with the theory back then?” She teased, leaning against him.

He ruffled her hair, “well, you do know that there’s a reason that a theory is called ‘theory’ and not ‘reality’, don’t you?”

 

* * *

 

**_Then_ **

Luna met Draco after she led Hannah back to their room and decided to go check on Michael’s situation with him when Draco updated her on the current situation.  They soon arrived at the room where Michael and Hermione were at.  Ginny also came back not long after.

The product Draco brought proved to be good as Michael regained consciousness quickly, although still feeling weak.  Hermione proposed they all go back to the living room to discuss the current situation, and Draco still needed to finish his breakfast, so they all headed downstairs to the living room.

It was then they found Blaise stabbed by a kitchen knife from behind his back, his body falling forwards lifelessly onto the table.


	5. Everyone Has Suspicions

**_Then_ **

Luna was still sobbing when Vitty took Blaise’s body out to bury with Ernie and Pansy, but she refused to go back to her room to rest as she wanted to stay with the others and discuss who had so vilely murdered Blaise.

Everyone seemed to have their own set of suspicions.  

Draco spoke first, “No offense, Corner, but the fact that you survived make me suspect that you simply staged it to take suspicions off yourself.”

“What?” Michael exclaimed angrily. “I nearly died!”

“Nearly being the point here—” Draco responded.

“Do you think I could’ve risked my own life like that?  If Vitty didn’t prepare some bezoars after last night, I would’ve died!  And I didn’t know that she would.”

“You could’ve just instructed her to do it.” Ginny sided with Draco’s point as she narrowed her eyes at Michael.

“Let’s ask Vitty who gave her the instructions then,” Hermione said logically, defending Michael.

They summoned the elf.  Upon hearing that question, Vitty replied, “Master send a pack of bezoars last night with a note.”

“Master?” Draco echoed.

“Bring us the note, Vitty,” Hermione requested.

Vitty did.  They all leant in closer to read the note attached on the bag of bezoars.  It said, “Heard there’s some poisoning in the cottage, keep this with you just in case anything like this happens again.  A Blue Snail.”

“We still haven’t figure out who this Blue Snail person is,” Ginny said as Vitty left again to prepare lunch.

“So, technically, it could be you,” Draco glared at Michael.

“Or,” Hermione shot back, “it could be you, Malfoy.”

“It could be anyone of us,” Luna pointed out, still in tears. “Except for Blaise, Pansy, and Ernie.”

“Maybe it’s some other person we don’t know,” Ginny muttered. “Someone else here with us, disillusioned himself – or herself – somehow.”

“It could be the elf,” Michael suggested, receiving a glare from Hermione.

“Elves don’t lie that well,” Draco said dismissively, “Though I think Vitty might be unintentionally helping this murderer, without knowing she’s doing so.”

“When I escorted Hannah back to her room, which ones of you left the room?” Luna asked.

“Well …” Ginny said uncomfortably, “Draco went to fetch some product, I took Ron back to his room, only Hermione stayed the entire time.”

“The entire time that Corner’s unconscious,” Draco pointed out, “so not exactly an alibi, assuming he doesn’t lie for her or they weren’t in this together.”

Before Michael could say anything to protest, Draco directed his gaze on Luna, “or it could’ve been you, maybe you took Abbot back, then went back and murder Blaise, then came upstairs again pretending you’ve just left Abbot.  You’re not entirely out of suspicions either.”

“Draco, how could you?” Ginny hissed at him, thinking her friend had just lost her boyfriend and didn’t deserved to be talked to like that.

“Malfoy’s right, though,” Hermione muttered. “We all have the chance.  Well, except for Michael who’s unconscious at that time.”

“That’s assuming you’re telling the truth,” Draco added.

“Right,” Hermione agreed, not bothering to argue with Draco, “you can’t know, but I do.  I guess I’m glad my suspects list could be shorter than yours and I’ve got more chance to get it right.”

 

* * *

 

**_Now_ **

“Well, the theory did turn out to work,” she laughed pleasantly, playing the sand with her feet.

“Thank Merlin for that,” he sighed. “You know, if it didn’t …”

“I know,” she said softly. “Believe me, I know.”

 

* * *

 

**_Before_ **

Ron was feeling better after a rest and decided to head out to find the others.  When he was walking along the second floor corridors, he saw a silvery-looking cloak that looked oddly familiar that sat on the stairs.  He frowned, feeling confused as he walked closer to check, but then the cloak suddenly disappeared.  Ron snapped, “Who’s there?”

No response came, but he heard some slightly footsteps hurrying down the stairs and he quickly followed it.  But when he reached the bottom of the stairs, he couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore.  He wanted to know who was there, but he figured he should go find the others first.  He had some suspicions …

As Ron entered the living room, he said, “Hermione.  We need to talk – privately.”

The others waited while the two thirds of the Golden Trio moved to a private corner to talk, while keeping an eye on them so no accidents would happen.  They could hear Ron whispering urgently and Hermione’s slightly raised voice, “Ron, do you know there’s a charm called _Homenum Revelio_?”

Judging from Ron’s look, he evidently hadn’t thought about that.

Draco were currently eyeing Luna with suspicion, so much that Ginny snapped at him about being inconsiderate. But he reasoned, “The thing is – you don’t know Blaise as well as I do, and I know how cautious and wary of his surroundings Blaise is.  Was.” Draco swallowed hard, his voice quivering slightly. “He’s … so sharp, so observant and always with his guard on, damn, I couldn’t believe that he’s someone that just … so easy to get stabbed.  It must be someone he trusted completely to catch him off guard like that …” he trailed off as he glanced at Luna, the implications clear.

“You’re the one that’s his best friend for years,” the Ravenclaw girl sniffed, wiping her tears. “He trusted you, too.”

Draco found that he couldn’t fight that logic.

Michael didn’t say anything, but he looked like he agreed with Luna’s words as he glanced at Draco darkly.  Draco glared back.

Hermione and Ron came back, while Ron recounted his little incident with the strange, silvery-looking cloak and Hermione casting a “ _Homenum Revelio_ ” but nothing happened.

“You think – it’s … Harry’s invisibility cloak?” Ginny said, shaking.

“We think it’s an invisibility cloak,” Hermione corrected, “it might be someone else’s.  Everyone cast this spell when they go into a room.  I’m thinking we should go checking every room in the afternoon.”

“It’s not exactly hard to charm a cloak invisible,” Draco mused, “though the effect might not last as long as Potter’s cloak, it might be good enough for short-term.”

“I think so, too,” Hermione said, her look saying that she definitely didn’t want to believe that Harry would be behind such thing. “So, it could be other people charming their cloak temporarily.  Anyway, everyone please make sure you can do the spell.”

“I propose that all of us go to Hannah’s room to ask her to lunch with us,” Hermione continued. “All of us.  I don’t want the – the murder going alone and kill her, or that someone innocent went and got murdered along the way by this invisible guy.  Remember, cast the _Homenum Revelio_ anytime along the way when you felt unsafe.  Let’s go.”

Thankfully, the way to Hannah’s room was safe and peaceful and they found no one even when they all casted the _Homenum Revelio_ spell repeatedly.  They made it safely back to the living room and called Vitty to bring out the lunch.

“Hey,” Ginny said as they dug in the risotto. “About that … um, nurse thing.”

“What?” Hermione asked confusedly. “Nurse?”

“No, not nurse … the … nurse rhyme poem, yeah.” Ginny corrected herself.

“Oh, nursery rhyme, you mean.”

“Yeah, that,” Ginny agreed, “We should take a look at it again.  Hmm … pity it isn’t written down.  Hermione, did you remember it?”

“Only parts of it … wait, Vitty?  Do you happen to have a copy of this poem written down somewhere?”

The elf proved to be useful as she said there’s the exact thing they were looking for in the kitchen.  She went and fetch it, and now they were all staring at a note with the muggle nursery rhyme written on it and a blue snail drawn on the bottom of the note.

 

 _Ten little wizards went out to dine; One choked his little self and then_ _there were nine._

 _Nine little wizards sat up very late; One overslept himself and then_ _there were eight._

 _Eight little wizards travelling in Devon; One said he'd stay there and_ _then there were seven._

 _Seven little wizards chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in halves_ _and then there were six._

 _Six little wizards playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then_ _there were five._

 _Five little wizards going in for law; One got in Chancery and then there_ _were four._

 _Four little wizards going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and_ _then there were three._

 _Three little wizards walking in the Zoo; A big bear hugged one and then_ _there were two._

 _Two little wizards sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then_ _there was one._

 _One little wizard left all alone; He went and hanged himself and then_ _there were none._

 

“Well, Pansy choked,” Ginny said slowly, “Ernie never woke up …”

“Blaise stayed in the living room,” Luna finished for her.

“Michael didn’t fit into the poem …” Ron murmured.

“As I said, staged,” Draco said in a low and dangerous voice.

“I didn’t stage it!” Michael replied hotly.

“Someone else staged it and hope to cast suspicions on him?” Hannah suggested.

“If he staged it himself, it’s too …obvious,” Luna said. “Because everyone would be suspicious once he survived, it wasn’t a well-thought plan because he’d become top suspect.”

“Or,” Ginny mused, “just … hypothetically, that is, according to Luna’s logic, it’s too obvious to be Michael, so it couldn’t actually be.  Therefore, we would conclude it isn’t him.  Then, he’d actually seem innocent and might in fact have staged it but we believed him to not have done something this obvious.”

“Gin, my head hurts,” Ron groaned. “This logic is so twisted.”

“Well, Weasley,” Draco drawled, couldn’t resist a jab at Ron even at these kind of times, “we all know that logic isn’t your strong suit.”

“Focus,” Hermione snapped. “The next line is something about chopping up sticks … well, we shouldn’t go venturing to the forest part of this island, I guess, but other than that, we also have to stick together for most of the time.”

 

* * *

 

**_And Way Before Then_ **

“Seven little wizards chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in halves and then there were six,” he muttered. “Any ideas, my girl?”

“Chopsticks,” she said, “you know, the Asian eating utensils.”

“Lovely,” he smirked, giving her a kiss.


	6. So, Chopsticks

**_Then_ **

They all stayed in the living room that afternoon, after double checking the room with _Homenum Revelio_ and setting up wards, but the debating died down a bit after a while since they were all feeling drained by the past two days.  Draco and Ginny were sitting on the sofa, leaning against each other and comforting each other quietly. 

Draco glanced at the other sofa, where Michael and Hermione were still discussing about the murders, and Hermione was writing on a notebook, listing all the details and trying to figure things out. Luna sat beside Hermione, watching her without commenting, though sometimes the blonde Ravenclaw’s sad eyes drifted away wistfully.  Draco supposed she was thinking about Blaise, and he missed his best friend greatly, too.  He sighed again and gently stroked Ginny’s back.

Hannah and Ron settled for the Wizard’s Chess to distract themselves, but it was easy to see neither of their hearts were in it as they simply pushed the pieces forward without much thinking, their minds on the murders.

After a few chess games, they all heard Hannah let out a strangled cry.  Draco and Ginny turned their head up sharply in the direction and Ginny was the first one to run towards the chess set as she saw something seemed to sprout up from the bishop Ron had just picked up.  Speaking of her brother, Ron was now lying on the floor and Ginny glared at Hannah, “What the hell?!”

The others had now all ran across the room to the chess set, too.  Hermione immediately checked for Ron’s pulse, and winced when she didn’t find it.  Draco narrowed his eyes at the bishop Ron had in his hand, and he could see something that looked like a pair of chopsticks growing out of the bishop.

“Nobody touches that bishop, or the pair of chopsticks growing out of it,” Draco said, his voice sharp. “Granger, is he still…?”

Hermione shook her head sadly as she did some quick diagnostic spells, “No.”  She waved her wand a few more times and gasped, “He’s been killed by electric shock!?”

“What’s electric shock?” Draco demanded. 

“I think dad mentioned something about electric long ago…” Ginny frowned and tried hard to remember. “It’s a muggle thing, right?”

“I’m guessing that an electric current flowed into him from that chopsticks,” Hermione’s eyes fell on the metal-made chopsticks.  “It looks more like a muggle handiwork, to be honest … the bishop was likely activated by something else, and this chopsticks suddenly sprang up and shot electricity through Ron.”

“But what is electricity?” Draco asked, frustrated.

Hermione cursed silently for having to explain about electricity to wizards. “Let’s just say it’s a kind of power that could fuel many muggle technology and make them function.  But it’s ... like magic power, it could be dangerous.”

“You do know rather a lot on the subject,” Luna commented suddenly.

“It is basic knowledge for someone born in a muggle family,” Hermione said, then stopped and looked around her, and saw many giving her suspicious looks.

 

* * *

 

**_And Way Before Then_ **

He played with one of the white bishop chess pieces in his hand casually, smirking, “Isn’t this lovely?”  He had just come back from a favorite shop of his, where the shop owner had given him a chess set with chopsticks that could send out a large amount of electricity hidden inside the 4 bishops.

“You know the strangest shops,” she said, amused. “And why electricity?”

“I did consider painting poisons on it,” he admitted, “But I’m afraid that wouldn’t continue to work, after the bezoar factor introduced.  It needed to be something quick.”

“So you went to a wizarding store that are willing to incorporate muggle technology in their products?”

“Yeah.  It’s famous for weapons both magical and muggle, and some are very creative.  One of my favorite shops, really.” He laughed easily.

“Normal people’s favorite shops are usually something like a bookshop or Madam Malkin’s Robes shop, and yours is a _weapon_ shop,” she teased, “you’re so very twisted in some way, most people didn’t even know where to find these kind of shops!”

“That’s why you love me,” he smirked again, kissing her on the cheeks.

 

* * *

 

**_Then_ **

“So, basically, you’re the only one of us who knew about this electricy thing,” Draco said, narrowing his eyes at Hermione.

“Draco!” Ginny kicked him, but she also threw Hermione her own suspicious look that wasn’t exactly subtle.

“It might not be one of us,” interjected Michael, knowing the others were suspecting his girlfriend.  “And didn’t Ron say he thought he saw someone using an invisibility cloak earlier?”

“I think Hermione is smart enough to not choose some muggle way to do this because she’s the only muggleborn here,” Luna pointed out.

Draco and Ginny exchanged a glance, and Hannah still looked uncertain.

“We should examine the chess set,” Ginny suggested after an awkward silence, “though I don’t really want to get killed by this electricity thingy, too.”

“We don’t need to touch it,” Hannah said, “Maybe dissemble it with spells?”

“I can try a few spells,” Michael said and raised his wand.  Hermione and Ginny also joined in, trying the spells they knew.  Ten minutes later, they found that there were hidden chopsticks inside the other 3 bishops as well.

“How did that person know Weasley was picking up that bishop?” Draco asked the reasonable question.  He turned to Hannah, “Give us your wand, I want to see if there’s anything unusual you’ve casted.”

Hannah looked startled, “I didn’t do anything!”

“Then giving him your wand would prove your innocence,” Luna said in a calm voice, and Hannah nodded fearfully and handed out her wand.  A _Prior Incantato_ showed that her last spell was _accio_ , which according to Luna and Hermione saw her cast this morning when she _accioed_ a pair of jeans she planned to wear. 

“We should also check if you have anything on you that could’ve activated the bishop,” said Hermione, a little apologetically. “This might have not been activated by a spell, but by some button you can press.”

Hannah nodded resignedly and so they searched through her pockets, but nothing was found.

“Hannah’s clean,” Ginny said after a moment.  “Hermione, Michael, Luna, you three were sitting together, and Draco’s with me and we can confirm that neither of us cast any spells or press any controller or anything.”

“Nor did any of us three,” Michael said. “But nobody else is here now, we had checked and warded all the entrances earlier and I just checked again with _Homenum Revelio._ ”

“Could someone invisible be peering in from the window?” Ginny asked.

They all turned to the window and agreed that it wasn’t possible to see the chessboard from that angle.

“Maybe there’s a video camera somewhere in this room,” Hermione mused, frowning, “Since apparently muggle technology could be used here, unlike Hogwarts.”

So they all searched the living room, trying to find a hidden camera somewhere, but the effort was futile as they found nothing.  After an hour’s work, they were all tired and decided to call in the elf to bring Ron’s body out and prepare dinner.

 

* * *

 

**_And Way Before Then_ **

“Let’s see … everyone would probably want to stay together in the living room that afternoon, and with a chessboard there, it’s pretty likely someone would want to use it for distraction from all the … horrible murders,” he gave a wicked smirk.

“I can’t be sure who exactly would be playing,” she said, “but I’ll wager a guess that Ron is likely to be one of them.”

“Highly likely,” he agreed. “So I let them play a few boards then after a while, when he picks up the bishop – I’ll make the chopsticks spring up and shoot electricity.  Perfect.” He grinned.


	7. The Bee

**_Then_ **

Later that night, Hermione proposed that they should all sleep together in the living room because it was safer this way.

“Sleep in the living room?” Draco exclaimed incredulously. “On the cold floor you mean?”

Hermione rolled her eyes, “Don’t worry.  I’ve kept a sleeping bag in my bag ever since last year, we can duplicate that so everyone has one to sleep in.”

Ginny nodded, “Sounds like a good idea, maybe we could also take turns in staying awake to stay guard.”

Draco muttered, “Still, it’s gonna be uncomfortable.”  Ginny pinched him on the arm so he said nothing more, but still looked sullen at the idea, having been used to big, comfortable beds all his life.

After deciding on the idea, Michael pulled Hermione away to a corner in the living room and casted a _Muffliato_ before saying, “I’ve been thinking … we didn’t find any hidden camera, and we’ve all agreed that if anyone was outside and peering in from the window, the angle couldn’t possibly see where Ron and Hannah was playing chess.  We have to be inside this room.  And you, me, Luna, we three had been sitting together at that time and we know none of us did anything, and Ginny and Malfoy vouched for each other but …”

Hermione quickly caught on what Michael was trying to say, “You think that they might be in this together?”

“That’s a logical explanation isn’t it?  I know Ginny’s your friend but …”

Hermione rubbed her forehead and sighed, “I really don’t think Ginny would do this … but apart from that, your deductions seem logical … but Ginny just … I don’t … I can’t imagine …”

“But how well do you really know her?” Michael pressed. “You’re more familiar with Harry and Ron, right?”

“But you’re making it sound like she and Malfoy killed her own brother!” Hermione exclaimed. “She wouldn’t do that!”

“Sometimes siblings may have more hidden resentment than those you know of,” Michael sighed. “I don’t know, I don’t think she’s the type either but … or maybe she was just covering for Malfoy because he threatened her too?  Or somehow he was able to distract her by kissing so she didn’t noticed he very quickly press some button to activate it?”

“That’s also possible …” Hermione mused.

 

* * *

 

**_Now_ **

They stayed out on the beach for a little while, watching the sun fading completely into the horizon.  The night was getting dark now and they could see some stars high in the sky.

“It’s beautiful,” he said softly, “I’m glad we decided to come back and visit.  I never had the chance to appreciate the stars last time.”

“Yeah, it’s harder to appreciate the natural beauty around us when busily executing a complicated murder plan,” she agreed, “still, you know how the saying goes – we should all stop and smell the roses sometimes.”

“There’s no roses on this island, though,” he said with mock seriousness.

“That reminds me, I want a garden on this island,” she laughed.

“Of course you do,” he smirked, “well, your wish is my command.”

 

* * *

 

**_Then_ **

While Hermione and Michael were chatting secretly in a corner of the living room, Ginny and Hannah were sitting on the sofa, seeking comfort from each other; the former about her brother’s death, the latter about her best friend’s.

Meanwhile, Draco and Luna were at another corner of the room.  Draco’s arms were folded across his chest and he had a suspicious look on his face, while Luna was looking at him calmly with a studious expression.

She spoke first, “You’ve got Umgubular Slashkilter flying around you.  Very interesting … makes me wonder some stuff.”

Draco groaned inwardly, wondering how the hell Blaise had always put up with her nonsense.

“I don’t care what you think that Umbrella Slashkiller nonsense –”

“Umgubular Slashkilter,” she corrected.

“Whatever,” he snapped. “I’ll let you know that I’m still suspicious of you.  Very.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” she countered. “Though I’m not sure if I think Ginny’s clueless or in it with you.”

“Oh, stop bickering, you two,” Ginny stood up from the sofa and moved towards them. “I know you’re both upset at losing Blaise, but fighting won’t help.  I lost my brother too.”

“Sorry, love,” Draco said softly, “but I do have my reasons to be suspicious.  Apart from the earlier fact that it’s just so strange that someone could caught Blaise off guard like that so it’s likely someone he trusted very much, she had the opportunity at your brother’s death too.  I mean, Granger and Corner sat with her and they said they didn’t saw her do anything strange, but the two might be sometimes too focused on each other since they’re a couple, so …”

“As I’ve already stated, you’re someone Blaise trusted too,” Luna pointed out. “And who says you couldn’t be the one that saw Ron picked up the bishop, distracted Ginny with a kiss, while another hand slipping into your pocket of your robes and flicked your wand to activate that thing?”

“Because as far as I remember, Draco and I were talking and facing each other before Ron –” Ginny choked slightly, “before Ron pic-picked up the bishop.  As for your suspicions Draco … we could go ask Michael and Hermione there.”

She grabbed both Draco’s and Luna’s hands and began walking towards Michael and Hermione, then asked them if they remembered if they might’ve been too deeply in their conversation to notice Luna.

“Hermione sat between me and Luna at that time,” Michael responded, “So I was half turned and had a clear view of them both, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t see Luna doing anything strange such as flicking her wand or pressing any button to activate anything.  And I think she didn’t reach for her pocket either.  She joined in our conversation occasionally and sometimes just looked around the room.  I’m pretty sure that she didn’t do anything else – trust me, I’ve been rethinking about if she had any actions, too.”

Before anyone else could voice any suspicions, they all heard Hannah’s scream and everyone turned around abruptly.  A flock of bees were flying around her, and everyone seemed too shock to move for a moment.  Then the swarm of bees flew away again, out of the opened window.

As everyone’s gaze followed the bees which flew out, Michael stared at the window suspiciously, “I thought we locked the window and warded it to make sure alohomora wouldn’t work on it when someone tried to open the window from the outside.”

Hermione wasn’t listening to her boyfriend, as she rushed over to Hannah and checked her state.  However, she quickly found that Hannah was already dead and she let out a frustrated sob after the discovery.  Everyone else now moved to her side quietly.

“This is … ” Hermione blinked back her tears. “I’ve once read that average person can safely tolerate 10 stings per pound of body weight.  An adult should be able to take over 1000 stings.”

“Hannah’s allergic to bees,” Michael said quietly, putting a hand on Hermione’s back gently.

“How did you know this?” Draco narrowed his eyes.

“We’ve once chatted about it … I think it had been in one of the chats after our study group time … We had a Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff study group back in Hogwarts – me, Anthony, Padma, Ernie, Susan, Hannah.”

Everyone went silent before Hermione turned to Luna, “Did you know this as well?”

The blond girl shook her head, “No.  I wasn’t in their study group, and we never chatted about the subject of bees.”

“No, apparently you only chatted about wrecksparks or Nargles or whatever strange creatures nobody else can see …” Draco muttered under his breath.

"Wrackspurts, not wrecksparks," Luna said.

Hermione ignored Draco's muttering and Luna's correction.  Then she spoke firmly, “Just because Michael’s the only one of us that knew about Hannah’s allergy to bees, it doesn’t mean that he did this.”

“I’d never do this to Hannah!” Michael exclaimed, while Ginny was regarding him uneasily, Draco glaring at him suspiciously, and Luna watching him searchingly. “And, who says the killer knew about the allergy?  Maybe he just didn’t know that bee stings don’t usually kill and still decided to choose this method because that stupid poem said so!”

Upon hearing this, Hermione took out the piece of parchment where she had made a copy of the nursery rhyme and examined the sentence ‘ _Six little wizards playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were five._ ’  She frowned deeply and didn’t say anything.

“But isn’t this just … too oddly coincidental?” Ginny finally said. “That this person made a mistake and … Hannah happened to be the victim out of pure randomness and she got allergy?”

“Too fucking coincidental,” Draco agreed coldly.

“If I really did this, I wouldn’t be telling you guys that I knew she got allergy, right?” Michael snapped. “I’m not that stupid!  Maybe one of you actually know but is pretending to not aware of this fact!”

Everyone went quiet for a moment. Then Hermione muttered, “If only we have some Veritaserum here …”

“Granger, you kept a useless tent in your bag, but not something useful like Veritaserum?” Draco raised an eyebrow.

“Shut up, Malfoy,” Hermione snapped. “And my tent is not useless!  We all need that if we’re to sleep in the living room later.”

“We could ask Vitty,” Luna suggested. “Maybe she would know if the owner of this place stock some Veritaserum here.”

“Good idea,” said Ginny and called the elf, “Vitty!”

Vitty appeared with a loud ‘Crack’ and bowed, “What do sirs and misses need?”

“Could you go see if there’s any Veritaserum in this place?  Oh wait – um, could you help bury Hannah’s body, and then go check if there’s any Veritaserum?”

 

* * *

 

**_Now_ **

“I really do love visiting this island … this is the only place where I can be myself again,” she commented.

“Well, that’s part of the problem with letting the whole world thought we’re dead,” he said reasonably. “As far as the other people knew, all ten of us died on during this visit, no survivors.  I think disguising ourselves with new identities is just a small price to pay for this plan’s success.”

“I guess so,” she sighed. “I could pretend to be my new identity, but it just feels good to have somewhere where I could safely take off the disguises and be my old self again.”

“Good thing we could visit our lovely island when we need, then,” he laughed.

“Our lovely island without a garden.”

“I’ll build one for you soon, I promise.”


	8. Revelations

**_Then_ **

“Yes, sirs and misses, Vitty would go check if there’s any Veritaserum,” the elf nodded.  “And Vitty would help bury Miss Hannah.”

While Vitty was away, Hermione suggested they put up a list of questions to ask everyone, and Michael reminded everyone there was still the subject of the opened window to be dealt with.

“Maybe one of your spells went wrong when you were warding it,” Ginny suggested. “Let’s just lock it and ward it again and focus on the questions now.”

In the end, they decided on a set of questions, from ‘Did you kill, or help kill, any of the people who died on this island since our arrival?’, ‘Did you know about Hannah’s allergy to bees previous of this?’ to ‘Are you using the codename A Blue Snail?’

When Vitty showed up again and gave each of them a small vial of Veritaserum, they quickly launched into questioning mode.  However, after a while, they quickly found that the result wasn’t satisfactory.  None of them admitted to killing or helping the killing of the people who had died.  Only Michael admitted to knowing Hannah’s allergy.  No one said they were using the codename A Blue Snail.

At last, Hermione said, “Well, now we can conclude that this isn’t done by anyone one of us but someone from the outside.”

“Since we’re sure that it isn’t one of us, maybe we should just leave and escape this place,” Luna said with a sigh. “But on the other hand, I don’t want to just leave like this and leave Blaise’s death unavenged.”

“And I want to find out who did that to Ron,” said Ginny quietly but determinedly. “I’m not leaving until we find out who’s behind all this.”

“Maybe we should call in auror forces to help, though,” Draco mused.

But then, none of them brought an owl with them and they found that they couldn’t apparate out this place and the portkeys that took them here were only meant to be used once.

“Apparently there’s apparition wards set up in this place … and no owls and no fireplaces to floo … we’re cut out from the world.  Why the hell didn’t any of us bring an owl?” Draco said frustratingly.

 

* * *

 

**_And Way Before Then_ **

“What if someone brought an owl to the island and decided to contact the outside world?” She asked.

“I know how to set up wards to that no owls could fly out of this island,” he said confidently.

 

* * *

 

**_Then_ **

None of them could answer Draco’s question, and he sighed.  After a few moments of awkward silence, Ginny suggested bedtime.  Draco was still very reluctant about the idea of sleeping on anywhere other than a comfortable bed, and in the end Hermione snapped at him and told him he could go and sleep by himself if that was what he wanted.  Ginny pled for Draco to stay, but he said, “We could put up some excellent wards around our room, too.  I don’t want to sleep in a sleeping bag when there’s comfortable beds!  Come with me too, Ginny love.”

Luna calmly pointed out, “If Draco and Ginny are going to sleep alone in a room together, I don’t think with only Michael, Hermione, and I, the living room would be safer than another bedroom.  In this case we three should just sleep in a bedroom, too.  We can separate a big bed into three if you’re not comfortable with all three of us in the same bed.”

While giving Draco a deep scowl that showed her deep disapproval with his insistence on sleeping comfortably, Hermione grudgingly agreed.

So the five of them went to bed, Draco and Ginny to one room and the rest to another.

 

* * *

 

**_Now_ **

After watching the stars for a while, they decided to head in to the cottage.  He went over and picked up the chess set that had been left there from last time. “Oh gods, I’ve missed this,” he laughed. “My lovely little weapon.”

“Want to play chess?” She asked.

“Sure,” he grinned and sat down on the chair and began putting all the chess pieces onto the board.

 

* * *

 

**_T_ ** **_hen_ **

Michael, Hermione, and Luna looked at each other uneasily after they finished the breakfast this morning.   Draco and Ginny still hadn’t come down from their room.

“We should go wake them,” Luna said finally.

“They probably warded the door from the inside though …” Michael sighed.

“If we can’t break in, that probably means no one else could, either, so that means they’re probably safe,” Hermione said uncertainly.

They couldn’t break in, apparently Draco was quite good with wards.  Hermione finally gave up and pounded on the door, yelling, “Ginny, Malfoy, can you guys hear me?  Get down for breakfast now!”

“Maybe Vitty could get in,” Michael suddenly said, “Elves aren’t bound by most wards, are they?”

“Good idea,” Hermione agreed. “Vitty!”

Vitty appeared and agreed to apparate them inside, and the possibility of the killer using this way to apparate in apparently crossed their minds and their faces paled a bit at the thought.

They only got paler when they saw both Draco and Ginny lying on the bed, not embracing each other but lying on the bed separately in a very rigid way.  Too rigid.

Hermione began running towards the bed, Michael and Luna following closely behind her.  As Hermione bent down and examine Ginny, she let out a sigh of relief when she felt her pulse. Until she heard Luna’s voice, “Draco’s dead.”

“What?” Hermione gasped and looked aside, while Michael pulled Ginny’s loosely grasped wand out of her hand.

“ _Prior Incantato Maximus,_ ” Michael muttered, waving his own wand to reveal the last five spells Ginny’s wand did.  _Lumos, Homenum Revelio, Accio, Avada Kedavra, Stupefy._

“She can’t have stupefied herself and fell down onto bed this gracefully …” Hermione said, trying to sound certain. “The attacker must’ve used his own wand…”

“Do you think she’ll remember anything when she woke up?” Luna asked, trying to shake Ginny awake.

“There isn’t the obliviate spell,” Michael pointed out. “Though it’s possible that the attacker did that with his own wand.”

“Ginny, wake up,” Luna continued to shake Ginny, and the red-head finally opened her eyes.

“Luna?” She asked uncertainly, then her eyes widened as she saw Hermione and Michael standing behind the blond Ravenclaw.  Ginny gasped and looked around for her wand, and when she saw Michael holding it, she quickly turned to Luna and grabbed the other girl’s wand in a really quick speed that only seekers could manage, and raised the wand at Hermione and Michael.

“Ginny? What are you—” Hermione’s words were cut short as Ginny fired an accurately aimed stunner at her and she tumbled backwards.  Michael looked bewildered for a moment before raising his own wand against Ginny, but the moment was all it took for himself to get stunned, too.

Luna looked alarmed and ready to sprint away into hiding or grab Ginny’s wand that was now falling from Michael’s grasp, but Ginny turned to her and said soothingly, “Luna, don’t worry.  I’m not going to harm you.  I stunned them because I saw Hermione killed Draco.” Her eyes turned dead cold. “I don’t know if Michael’s in on this with her or not, but they’re a couple, best not to take any chance.”  Then she conjured a rope to bind the stunned couple, just in case they regained consciousness.

Luna slowly moved herself towards Ginny’s fallen wand on the ground, and said, “I’d like to believe you, Ginny … but they shared the room with me the whole night … and how can you prove what you said is true?”

Ginny took a deep breath, “Well, you wouldn’t know if Hermione left the room secretly when you’re asleep though, would you?  Look, I – here,” she held out the wand she had grabbed from Luna, “Sorry I grabbed this, when I woke up and saw Michael holding my wand and remembering Hermione killed Draco I just – well, you can have it back.  You can also have my wand if it makes you feel safer.” Ginny offered.

“Well …” Luna hesitated.

Hermione and Michael were steadily regaining their consciousness and heard some parts of their conversation.  On the ground, Michael called out to Luna, “Take her wand, Luna, she’s only making this offer to make her look innocent and hoping you’ll reject and give her wand back.  Neither Hermione nor I left our room last night, she must be lying.  She probably killed Malfoy too.”

“Hermione did!” Ginny yelled accusingly at him. “I saw her!  You’re probably in on this with her, too.  How could you say that _I_ killed Draco? He’s my _boyfriend_!”

“Calm down!” Hermione snapped. “Maybe someone polyjuiced as me and went in!”

“Yeah, _you_ would say that,” Ginny shot back.

“I mean, it obviously isn’t one of us, since we tried the Veritaserum last night, and none of us is guilty, remember?” Hermione said.

Everyone went quiet for a moment before Michael muttered, still glaring at Ginny, “Assuming that she was indeed behind this, and the elf works for her, maybe she already told the elf that when Veritaserum is asked, remember to give her the bottle that’s not real Veritaserum in it.”

“A valid point,” Luna pointed out, “but it applies to all of us.”

“True,” Michael conceded.  Then he said, “Can you take the binding robes off us now?”

“No,” Ginny said immediately, “I still don’t trust you.”

“And I still don’t trust you,” Michael snapped back. “Hermione and Luna and I were all in the same room last night, you’re the only with Malfoy.  And you’re now lying about Hermione breaking into your room!”

“Well she did!”

“I didn’t,” Hermione said firmly. “But this is getting nowhere.  I can’t prove that it’s someone polyjuiced as me and you can’t prove that you actually saw me – or someone like me.  You don’t trust us – and we’re not sure if we could trust you either. We could always summon Vitty and asked if she helped anyone broke in last night …Though I think she might’ve already been ordered to protect her master’s secret so that won’t work.”

“A deadlock,” Luna said softly. “Maybe we should keep everyone’s wand together and lock it away so none of us have a wand.  That way we’d feel safer around each other.”

“No,” Hermione said immediately, “maybe that’s what the outside attacker wanted.  All of us without our wand by our side.”

“But _is_ there really an outside attacker?” Michael sighed. “We checked many times and we haven’t really found anyone else – except the time Ron said that he seemed to have seen something resembling an invisibility cloak, but then we checked with _Homenum Revelio_ again and again and there’s no one.  I’m more inclined to believe that there’s no outside attacker …” He narrowed his eyes at Ginny. “And I’m not even sure if Malfoy’s dead or that’s someone else polyjuiced as him and you two are in this sick plan together …”

“I’m inclined to agree with the no outside attacker part,” Luna said. “Though I haven’t figure out if it’s one of us, who’s the real culprit behind this?”

“I swear I saw Hermione –” Ginny began.

“Perhaps it's polyjuice!” Hermione cut through her.

“I still think you’re lying about seeing her,” Michael said darkly.

“Here, have my wand, Luna,” Ginny handed her wand and Luna’s to the Ravenclaw girl. “There, trust me?  Now we have to figure out a way to contact the outside world while keeping these two bound by ropes.”

Luna took both wands and tilted her head thoughtfully as she threw out a seemingly harmless question, “Have you guys ever heard of anagram?”

“What?” Ginny blinked. “Is that a way of communication we can use?”

“No,” Hermione replied, “It’s a rearrangement of letters of a word or phrase.  But Luna, please stay on the topic – we don’t have time to discuss random stuff – oh. Oh. OH.”

“What’s the matter, Hermione, love?” Michael asked, worried.

Hermione paid no attention to him and yelled, “Ginny, get the wands back—” just as Luna fired an Avada Kedavra which struck the red-headed girl, and Ginny fell backwards onto the ground.

“Always knew you’re the smart one, Granger,” a deep male voice drawled, walking into the bedroom and clapping his hand sardonically. “So you finally figured out what the signature _A Blue Snail_ meant?”

Michael gasped, shock written on his face as he asked disbelievingly, “Aren’t you – dead?”

“Well, as you can see,” the man who just walked in smirked and gave the rope-bound couple a mock bow, “I’m pretty much alive, thank you very much.  I can explain it to you later if you like.” He turned towards Luna, “Miss me, love?”

She smiled, “Of course, Blaise dearest.”

 

* * *

 

**_And Way Before Then_ **

“Do you have any idea how we should call ourselves when we sent out the invitation letter?” Blaise asked Luna. “I was thinking that we could use both our names and rearrange the letters or something …”

“That’s unoriginal,” she frowned, “Voldemort already used the same trick.”

“It’s not unoriginal, it’s classic,” he argued. “Anagrams are classic.  Trends that never get old.”

“Fine,” she relented. “Anagram it is.”


	9. The End

**_Then_ **

Blaise picked up Hermione's and Michael's wands that were lying on the ground and carefully put them away. He glanced at the couple and the corners of his lips twitched slightly upwards into his usual smirk. "I had to admit that I was slightly surprised that things went this smoothly. Well, there goes my back-up plan going to waste." He sighed dramatically.

"I told you that plan A is good," Luna said, raising an eyebrow.

"It's brilliant," Blaise shrugged, "but you can't deny that it relied on too many outside factors, it needed too many people to react just the way you predicted. While your predictions are all reasonable and turned out to be correct, it wasn't 100% guaranteed because it involved  _people_."

"Sometimes you're so analytical you sound like a Ravenclaw, love," she laughed, amused.

"What can I say? Someone gave me all the bad influences," he winked at her flirtatiously. "But I'm still an overanxious Slytherin so I have my lovely plan B that'll become plan A if Ginevra hadn't successfully bound them and hand you her wand. I've got the last three lines of poem all planned out."

"Why?" Hermione asked coldly, glaring at him. "Why – all of this?"

"Various reasons, to be honest," Blaise shrugged carelessly. "Partly because some of your attitudes toward my dearest Luna during Hogwarts – dismissing everything she said as crazy and untrue–" he glanced towards Hermione "and maybe stealing her stuff in Ravenclaw Tower," he looked towards Michael, "stuff like that. And because I like the nursery rhyme, it's cute."

"That's … ages ago, before the war," Michael protested.

"Maybe I held a grudge long?" Blaise suggested coolly. "Let me assure you that I'm not doing any of this without her consent, though. But, I'll admit that not everyone invited had actually been that way towards her, some of you are just here to … balance the amount of number from the four houses."

"What?!" Hermione sounded incredulous.

"This isn't just revenge," Luna spoke, smiling sweetly. "Or we could've simply invite specific people and  _avada_  them all quickly. No this is—"

"Think of it as an artwork, or a project," Blaise smirked. "So I thought the balance is important, you know – like, symmetrical. Of course, the poem had only 10 people rather than 12 … so we had to do 3,3,2,2. But it's close enough."

"I thought Ginny's your friend, and Malfoy and Parkinson are  _yours,_ " Hermione narrowed her eyes at them both.

"The Slytherins have done their fair share in calling me names and everything," Luna shrugged. "Well, Blaise hasn't, of course."

"Besides, I really want that exclusive, lovely pocket watch of Draco's that's also a Malfoy heirloom," Blaise laughed. "It's so  _pretty_. He won't even let me  _touch_  it, though. Oh, and killing Pansy first is essential because it actually made Draco least suspicious of me because, well, Slytherin camaraderie and all that."

"Ginny's here because she's dating Draco," Luna explained, in a matter-of-fact voice. "We want to have some couples."

"It really takes some organizing … picking out people that'll fit the sleeping arrangements we had in mind that also fit with the whole plan," Blaise drawled. "Do you want to know anything … specific? Or do you want to proceed straight to the next stage?"

"I presume you plan to kill us in the next stage?" Hermione asked furiously.

"Smart, Granger," he returned a smirk. "I presume you'll want to delay us by asking questions and trying to think up some plan to escape?"

Hermione tried to act nonchalant as she lied, "As far as I can see, there's no way of escape, so I won't waste energy trying, I'm just curious how you faked your death, and did Luna actually knew about Hannah's allergy? And how did you managed to—"

"Good try at lying about not trying to escape," Luna smiled serenely. "Though you can't stop the Umgubular Slashkilter flying towards you. Oh, yes, Hannah told me about her allergy and yes, as you've guessed, Vitty didn't give me the real Veritaserum."

Hermione only stared at her with a mixed expression of incredulity and anger. "Whatever those are Umgubular things are, they don't exist, Luna!"

"You don't know what they are but you can confidently claim they don't exist?" Blaise raised an eyebrow. "Tut, tut, Granger, that's the attitude I was talking about."

Michael turned to Blaise angrily, "Do you _really_ believe that nonsense?"

Blaise looked back calmly, "You guys didn't believe in thestrals before actually seeing them, did you? But back to the point … there's a lovely, very recently developed potions that made people temporarily loss their heartbeats and breaths and everything for faking death. I added the 'knife on the back' bit just to be dramatic – it doesn't hurt when you're in the temporary-dead phase. Luna helped stab me, of course, and Vitty pulled the knife out the moment she took my body out."

"Vitty's brilliant," Luna beamed approvingly. "Your mother trained her well."

"Hard not to be well-trained when you've helped with several husband-murders, though," Blaise pointed out. "Now, Granger, do you keep a diary?"

"What?" Hermione was taken aback by the sudden unrelated question. "No."

"Pity, really, Vera Claythorne did," Blaise sighed. "Lucky I have managed to acquire your handwriting then, though I had to admit it was slightly harder than acquiring your hair."

"Who's Vera Clay—" her question was cut short by Luna's Avada Kedavra. Before Michael could voice any of his outrage, another green light struck him also.

 

* * *

 

**_And Way Before Then_ **

"The women in the muggle novel who died last, what's her name again?" Blaise asked Luna.

"Vera Claythorne," she reminded him.

"Ah yes, right. The police found out that she kept a diary, didn't they?" he asked.

"Yeah, what are you planning?"

"I'm thinking of choosing Granger as our Vera," Blaise explained. "I could fake her handwriting with a Write-Any-Font-You-Like Quill and forge her diary, including a series of misleading false events, and send it to the aurors."

"Sounds nice," she agreed, "Have you thought about what to write in the diary yet?"

"Something like all of us – including you and me, love – died and only she and the Weaselette is left. Granger figured that Ginevra must be the killer so she killed her in self-defense." He shrugged. "That's what Vera did."

"Then Vera hanged herself, in her post-traumatic state," Luna said. "But do people actually write they're going to commit suicide in diaries they send off to aurors?"

"I don't think so," Blaise admitted. "But they won't suspect too much when we've staged all the corpses correctly and made it look like all the events in the diaries actually happened. Oh, and we'll have to get 2 other bodies to polyjuice as our corpses so when the aurors came to investigate they'd think that all ten of us died."

"And we need new identities," Luna said.

"Don't worry, my mother knows a man who could forge new identities for us," he laughed.

 

* * *

 

**_Now_ **

After a few games of chess, they went outside again, strolling along the island. The night sky was bright with all those stars shining beautifully.

Luna glanced up dreamily, "Pity we'll have to leave the island next week again."

"Well, love, vacation cottages should be reserved for vacations only," Blaise reasoned. "I'll have your garden ready the next time we visit," he promised, "How about just outside the window that you had used for eye-signaling me when Ronald Weasley picked up the bishop?"

"Sounds wonderful," she smiled. "I'll give you a list of plants I want."

"Of course," he leant over to kiss her, "anything for you, love."

-FIN-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A.N.: Thanks to everyone reading this story!!
> 
> I really do enjoy writing Dark!Bluna stories, and I have to admit they are pretty evil in this one. If you're interested in Dark!Bluna, I have a oneshot called A Happy Ending, Depending on Whom You Ask which is Dark!Hansy+Bluna. Or you might be interested in Dark Necessities, which features a series of oneshots in a Voldemort-ruled AU. It's Dark!Blunadore.
> 
> I've always wanted to write a story based on this novel of Agatha Christie's, and I'm really glad I've finally done it. When I decided to do the story, I also decided to change a few things from Christie's original plot, like making a couple to be the culprit this time. In following, this became one of the few stories of mine that doesn't contain slash, because I want to let every couple in the story have a possibility to be the mystery couple in the 'Now' and 'And Way Before Then' sections.
> 
> I've planned for this to be Dark!Bluna from the start, as you can see the 'A Blue Snail' anagram appeared in the first chapter. Sometimes I worried if I'd dropped too many hints there XD. Congratulations to everyone who has figured it out!  
> (In the story, the one person closest to figure the whole thing out, before the very end when Hermione realized the anagram thing, was actually Draco. Blaise's death made him suspicious of Luna, and he was right about the fact that it would be hard to stab someone as cautious as Blaise successfully. Draco had been continuously suspicious of Luna after Blaise's death, he just didn't figure out that Blaise was also in on the plan.)
> 
> Thanks again to everyone who read the story, I hope you've all enjoyed the ride :)  
> Sunset Oasis

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr: ff-sunset-oasis.tumblr.com


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